City of London Corporation

The City of London Corporation (formerly known as the Corporation of London) is the municipal governing body of the City of London. It exercises control only over the City (the "Square Mile," so called for its approximate area), and not over Greater London. It has three main aims: to promote the Business City as the world's leading international financial and business centre; to provide high quality local government services; and to provide a range of additional services for the benefit of London, Londoners and the nation.

The City of London Corporation is formally termed the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London, thus including the Lord Mayor, the Court of Aldermen, and the Court of Common Council.

Local government legislation often makes special provision for the City to be treated as a London borough.

The City of London does not generally exercise authority over two historic extra-parochial areas, the Middle Temple and the Inner Temple, which are adjoining enclaves for two of the Inns of Court in the west of the City. Some statutory functions of the Corporation extend into these two areas.

Elite and secretive

The Corporation is run, as the Sunday Times put it in 1995, by an:

“exclusive coterie of men who rule the City of London according to conventions laid down in medieval times... at least 21 of the 25 aldermen attended top public schools including Eton, Harrow, Charterhouse, Radley, Haileybury, Rugby and Stowe. They are drawn from some of the most prestigious City names, including Rothschilds and Linklaters & Paines... The City was the only local authority allowed to keep its aldermen when they were abolished elsewhere in 1972. Aldermen wine and dine regularly at the Mansion House, home of the lord mayor of London, and at Guildhall, the official headquarters. They rub shoulders with prime ministers and ministers, not only from Britain, but from abroad. Each alderman gets a turn as lord mayor, for which he is given the use of two Rolls-Royces, travel expenses and the right to live in the Mansion House . There are 230 lunches, dinners and banquets each year at the Mansion House, which has extensive wine cellars and 37 staff."

People

• Tony Halmos - Director of Public Relations
• Alan Murray - working as an adviser to the Corporation since May 2011. A former Standard Life head of public affairs and has also worked for the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA)

Lobbyists

• Quiller Consultants - current

• Lord Jack Cunningham - former cabinet minister and a director of lobbying firm Sovereign Strategy who reportedly was hired to give political advice to the Corporation in September 2006. In the first year, the corporation paid £48,000 for this work to him and Sovereign Strategy.

According to documents obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act, Cunningham gave the corporation confidential advice about two bills going through parliament which affected the authority. In one of the bills, the corporation opposed plans to give Ken Livingstone, the London mayor, greater powers in planning matters on the grounds that they would damage the City. He also faced questions over his apparent failure to declare his consultancy with the corporation in the House of Lords register of financial interests.

Contact

• Website City of London

External Resources

• Nicholas Shaxson, The tax haven in the heart of Britain, New Statesman, 24 February 2011.
• George Monbiot, The medieval, unaccountable Corporation of London is ripe for protest, guardian.co.uk, Monday 31 October 2011 21.00 GMT.
• Ben Quinn, Corporation of London: an ancient institution that favours big business, guardian.co.uk, Monday 31 October 2011, 21.13 GMT.